Blinking and looking as surprised as anyone, he stepped from behind the
blood-red velvet curtains and acknowledged the rapturous cheers from the
thousands thronging St Peter’s Square.

With the words “buona sera” — good evening — Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a 76-year-old Argentine, became the Roman Catholic Church’s 266th pope, the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium, the first from the Americas and the first Jesuit to ascend to the throne of St Peter.

He expressed wonder that his 114 brother cardinals had looked to “the end of the world” to find a successor to Benedict XVI. Cardinal Bergoglio was an unexpected choice — he had not featured in any of the front-runner lists that were drawn up by Vatican-watchers in the days before the election.

A stunned-looking Pope Francis, dressed in white vestments and with a crucifix around his neck, shyly waved to the crowd of tens of thousands who shrugged off the rain and cold in the square below.

The appearance of white smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney had earlier electrified Rome.

Within seconds, people were running up the avenue that leads from the River Tiber to St Peter’s Square.

“They’ve chosen, they’ve chosen,” a woman told her daughter as they hurried across rain-soaked cobbles, two small figures in a river of hundreds hurrying to the seat of the Roman Catholic Church.

Groups of young people sang and danced in front of television cameras and mobile phone networks crashed as tens of thousands of people called friends and relations.

They waved flags and shouted “Viva Il Papa” — without yet knowing who Il Papa was — as more people crammed into the square.

There was then an agonising wait of more than an hour in the drizzle, as the crowd fizzed with speculation as to who the new pope might be.

He was picked after the cardinals cast just five votes in the conclave, held in the frescoed splendour of the Sistine Chapel.

Marco Politi, a well-known Vatican analyst, said: “I think it’s a good move. He’s not Italian, he’s not European, he’s not a man of the Curia [the Holy See’s governing body]. He represents an opening to the developing world.

“I think Francis I signifies a completely new beginning. He’s a moderate man with some reformist tendencies. He’s a man of the centre but open to reform and to a more positive vision of the Church.”

White smoke signifies a new Pope is elected

His decision to pick the name Francis was interpreted as a sign of his desire to embrace simplicity and humility, in what could be an epic shift for the Church.

His personal style is said to be the antithesis of Vatican pomp and the name he has chosen is fitting for a man known for catching the bus and eschewing the luxuries of high office.

He stepped on to the balcony of St Peter’s after a cardinal in scarlet robes announced “Habemus Papum” — “We have a pope!”

Cardinal Bergoglio had reportedly finished second in the 2005 conclave that elected Joseph Ratzinger as Benedict XVI.

The Archbishop of Buenos Aires has spent nearly his entire career in Argentina. He asked for prayers for himself, and for his predecessor, the Pope Emeritus, who is the first pontiff to step down since 1294.

Helen Crombie, a long-time British resident of Rome who works as a translator, described hearing about the election of the new Pope. “We were at home in Trastevere [a quarter of Rome] when we heard,” she said. “Downstairs from our flat there is a bar where people normally watch the football. There was shouting and the woman who owns it started ringing a bell. We came over straightaway.”

As the bells of St Peter’s rang out, Jacob Resnick, 20, from Rochester, New York, said: “It’s exciting, and it’s also a relief to finally see the white smoke because we’ve been waiting here for hours in the rain. It’s monumental.”

Many people wept, while others sang and laughed in a festival atmosphere. The anticipation was heightened by the grand theatre of the event — the Vatican and Italian military bands marched through the square and up the steps of the basilica, followed by Swiss Guards in full regalia.

They played the introduction to the Vatican and Italian anthems and the crowd, which numbered at least 50,000, joined in, waving flags from countries around the world.

Maria Skolozynska, 22, from Poland, said: “We were in an Italian class when I got a message and I said, 'Excuse me but we have a Pope’. Then we rushed to a supermarket to buy something to drink and the man gave us a bottle of wine for free.”

“It’s a historic moment,” said Agne Daunyte, 25, from Lithuania. “I want the new Pope to bring something new, something better to the Church.”

Shortly after 8pm local time, Pope Francis delivered his first blessing to the crowd, asking for the prayers of “all men and women of good will” to help him lead the Roman Catholic Church.

Speaking with a slight Latin American accent, the Pontiff even cracked a joke. “As you know the duty of the conclave is to give Rome a bishop. It seems that my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world,” a quip which drew huge cheers and laughter.

The conclave, which started on Tuesday, was one of the fastest of the last century. Over the past 100 years, many conclaves lasted up to four days.

Last year, the Pope Francis paid tribute to the 649 Argentine troops who died during the Falklands conflict, describing them as “sons of the homeland” who sought to “reclaim what is theirs”.

Giving mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the conflict last April, he called for the vindication of “all” who died in the conflict, according to Argentine reports.

“We come to pray for those who have fallen, sons of the homeland who set out to defend his mother, the homeland, to claim the country that is theirs and they were usurped,” he told the congregation.

Barack Obama, the US president, said the selection of the first pope from the Americas spoke to the strength and vitality of the region, while Cristina Kirchner, the president of Argentina hailed the election.